The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1887-05-26
IN A SUN CLUSTER.
LIFE IN CONSTELLATION HERCULES
ANEvER ENDING DAY.
A Story Which the Far Seeing Astron-
omer Reads I'm the Stars-A Land of
Perpetual Daylight-The Light of
Fifteen Moons.

A Story Which the Far Seeing Astron.
omer Reads I'm the Stars-A Land of
Perpetual Daylight-The Light Of
Fifteen Moons. .-.
In the constellation Hercules there is n
compact star cluster we'll known to the
owners of powerful telescopes as ono of
the most interesting and wonderful
phenomena to be found in the heavens
To the naked eye it looks like faint star.
In the telescope 1t appears rs q spherical
mass of stars, with short, struggling
streams, also composed of stars, radiating
from it. William Herschel computed the
number of stars in this cluster at not less
than Il, 600. In the center they appear
so compressed that it is impossible to
count them. OF course every one of the
members of this starry swarm is sun,
and astronomers have sometimes piqued
their imagination by wondering what
must be the condition of things prevailing
IN such system of suns, and what results
flow from the inevitable laws of gravita-
ton there. Could inhabited worlds exist
in sun clusterp
Take the bright star Sirius, the most
brilliant fixed star in the heavens Any
one who wishes can sec it in the southern
heavens early in the evening at this sea-
son. Various estimates of the light of
Sirius have made it from one twenty
thousand millionth up to about one five
thousand milliOnth Of the suns light.
Suppose we adopt the latter figure as be-
ing the most favorable to Sirius Then
comparing this with the fraction repre-
senting the light of star In Hercules as
seen from, its nearest neighbers in COM
parison with that of the sun, namely, one
three-million six ed-thousandth, we
find that the light of the star is nearly
1, 400 times as great as the light that Sir
irls sends to us. In other words, If we
could visit the cluster in Hercules, we
should find that it's stars, rs seen from
distance of 1900, 600, 600 miles, their aver
age distance apart, would shine l 400
times as bright as Sirius shines in our
sky.
Sirius is probably 500 times as bright as
the faintest star that the naked eye per-
ceives on a clear night. Then imagine
star three times Us much brighter than
Sirius as Sirius is brighter than the
smallest star You can see, and you will
have some notion of the brilliancy of the
stars in question as seen from one an
other. -eG- taa-..f I'D .r-a-.
PERPETUAL DAYLIGHT.
NoW leu us suppose WOflu feVolVlng
around a star situated mt the center of the
cluster, Assuming that the surrounding
stars are arranged in pretty symmetrical
way. there would be dozen of them
within n distance of 1900, O00, 900 miles,
and each of these would, as seen from the
world at the center, appear I, 400 times
brighter than Sirius appears to u.s. There
would be upward of fifty stars twice rs
far away, each of which would be $50
times as bright as Sirius. Thus the stars
of the cluster, as seen from the center,
would go on increasing in number and di-
minishing in brightness, but as the total
number is limited to Il, 900 or $1,000, the
outermost stars would be approximately
135, 0OO, 00O, 900 miles away, and each
would shine six times as bright as Sirius.
1t is apparent that there would be a
sort of perpetual daylight at the center Of
such congregation of suns. Let us see.
about how bright this light would be. OF
course our suppos!ntious planet might ya,'